


Magic, Madness, Heaven, Sin

by thelilacfield



Series: there is no world where i am not yours [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Suicide Squad (2016) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25783267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: “One more thing, Vision. Don’t let this become personal. She is not a good person. After we are sure than they will be safe as a team, they will all be returned to their cells until such a time as we need them. Don’t let her get to you.”“Of course not, Secretary. I promise, I am not so easily distracted.”
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: there is no world where i am not yours [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859725
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	Magic, Madness, Heaven, Sin

**A/N:** Day eight of AU-gust! For superhero day, I decided that an AU of another superhero movie worked - so enjoy Vision and Wanda as Rick Flag and the Enchantress! You can read more about the challenge and see what else is coming **[here](https://augustwritingchallenge.tumblr.com/post/621653119656493056/the-list-of-prompts-was-completed-one-prompt-per#notes)**!

Please leave a comment if you enjoy this fic! I'm on tumblr and twitter **@ mximoffromanoff** if anyone wants to chat!

* * *

Water has never seemed inviting to him. Not in pools with beautifully tiled floors and immaculate surroundings, smooth and blue and pleasantly warm. Not in ponds reflecting a blazing web of sunlight, rippling with the movements of the birds paddling slowly back and forth. And certainly not violent like the churning waves licking at the sides of the enormous concrete structure, hydraulics raising it slowly from below the surface of the angry ocean as the rain lashes at the windows of the helicopter.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Secretary Ross' voice fills the helicopter in its authority, and he clasps a hand on Vision's shoulder and looks with him, eyes shining as they watch the Raft emerge from the water, a long beam of light emerging as the roof opens wide to give them access to the landing pad.

"It's certainly a marvel of engineering," Vision says, in genuine admiration. The helicopter blades slow with a rough thudding sound that's becoming familiar, and the door slowly hums open, revealing the domed entrance to the prison and the legions of guards awaiting them.

Maria Hill strides forward first, outfitted all in combat-ready black, a gun gleaming at her hip. The smile that lights her face as she holds a hand out to Ross appears odd on her countenance, used as he is to seeing her with the steeliness to her eyes and her mouth set in a hard line, outlining the semantics of SHIELD and Ross' newest collaborative gamble. "So wonderful to see you again, Agent Hill," Ross says, charm webbing through his words, and she nods, her smile stiffening like that of a china doll on her lips. "I hope that you aren't finding this place too claustrophobic."

"I was a SHIELD field agent for five years and top of my class at the academy, you don't get there without spending time in places worse than this," she says, and glances at Vision. "And why have you brought an Avenger here with you? Is Rogers aware of this?"

"What the star-spangled man doesn't know won't hurt him," Ross says, a heavy humour to his words, and Vision doesn't miss the momentary doubtful quirk of Maria's eyebrow. "I thought it would be great to show one of them what you and your team have achieved here. And Vision is the most able to defend himself should there be another...incident." The silence lasts a long moment, the threat hanging in the air, then Ross smiles and asks, "How is Agent Morse recovering?"

"She'll live," Maria says brusquely. "They finished the latest operation on her knee, she's trying to get back to fighting strength."

"Wonderful," Ross says, clasping his hands together with a startling snap. "She is an excellent agent, it would be a shame for her to be benched by a mishap with the electrical fields. So, Agent Hill, will you show Vision what we have been working on?"

Maria nods firmly, and turns on her heel to lead them away from the entryway, into the depths of the Raft. Prisoners rattle the bars of their cells, lips moving behind the soundproof glass, and something hollow spirals into Vision's stomach, leaving a terrible taste in his mouth. They are humans, pacing their narrow cells and doomed to life in a prison so completely secure it's submerged in water. It's no kind of life.

"Meet our elite," Maria says, pausing at the beginning of a corridor deep within the bowels of the prison, Ross smiling in something close to delight as he looks around and Vision feeling as if his blood has turned to lead. "The worst of the worst. People who evaded SHIELD for years and took our own down with them."

The first cell holds a redheaded woman in the faded blue prison uniform, picking at her nails and hardly reacting when she looks up to see three faces peering in at her. "Natalia Alianovna Romanova, the Black Widow." Maria's voice is clipped and business-like, as if she's reciting a file from memory. "The last living Red Room operative. Trained to be the perfect super-spy, maiming and seducing and killing her way across Europe when she crossed our radars. Nearly managed to ensnare our own Agent Barton, but luckily Agent Morse brought him back to his senses and they captured her together."

A man in the next cell waves at them through the glass, grinning from ear to ear. "Scott Lang, the Ant Man. Thinks of himself as a hacktivist. Stole shrinking tech and went on the rampage, got himself a neat death toll of twenty people in one week. We arrested him seconds before he was about to expose crucial international secrets to the world."

Vision pauses to see the occupant of the next cell, a seemingly benign man with grey growing into his dark hair and a thick textbook balanced on his crossed legs. "Bruce Banner, the Hulk. Rather than dying when his radiation research went horribly wrong, he mutated into a green monster fuelled by pure rage. We have to keep him calm or he could rip this place apart."

In the next cell is another man, head dropped forward and dark hair hiding his face, his left arm a gleam of silver rather than human. "The Winter Soldier." Maria's voice has dropped to a whisper, her gaze darting. "HYDRA operative for over sixty years, fuelled by a bastardised version of Rogers' supersoldier serum. Fury wanted to give up on him because he's been in and out of cryo and brainwashed, but Simmons took him on as something of a pet project, nursed him back to health. Sadly, he flipped and attacked Agent Mackenzie, beat him half to death in the middle of the base. So we had to bring him here."

Maria looks with disgust on the man in the next cell, who spits at the screen between them with his lip curled in hatred. "This is James, likes to call himself Hellfire. Naturally, he controls fire. Agent Johnson brought him in, he's only here because he's destroyed every other jail cell we've tried to put him in."

"I was told you had apprehended six of our world's worst supervillains," Ross says, peering at Matt Murdock with something unreadable in his eyes. "I only see five cells, Agent Hill."

"Ms. Maximoff put six of my agents in the hospital last week, she's been moved to her own floor," Maria says, and beckons them to the elevator once again, the mechanics rattling as they descend. Fifty guards stand sentinel along the walls of the single corridor below, the air cooler, and Vision can't help the creeping shadow of foreboding that fills him, following Maria and Ross' brisk steps towards the cell of the seventh member of the team Ross has been piecing together, wondering what sort of terrible villain needs such heavy security.

Momentarily, he thinks that the girl curled in the centre of the cell cannot possibly need this heavy a guard around her. Despite his admittedly less than stellar talents in judging the ages of people, she cannot be older than her early twenties, her pale face mostly hidden behind tangled dark hair. Her body is forced into a rigid sitting position by the straitjacket bound around her, a red light pulsating on a collar bound around her neck and her mouth covered by a heavy black gag. Above all of this, her eyes are very green and filled with pain, a silvery scar slanting over her cheek, and his heart goes out to her.

"Wanda Maximoff." Ross' voice breaks him from his reverie, and he shudders to see the triumph on Ross' face as he looks down at this young woman unable to move a muscle. "The Scarlet Witch. The worst of the worst."

"Her powers were awoken by Wolfgang von Strucker's experiments using the Mind Stone," Maria says, and Vision unconsciously raises a hand to brush the gem in question, slightly warm to the touch. "She is unspeakably powerful, we believe she hasn't even realised the extent of it. With her chaos magic, she could rewrite reality with a word. Not that she tries to. She's been on a rampage of vengeance since the Battle of Sokovia, she came dangerously close to reaching the compound before Fury himself took her down. Shot her straight through the shoulder, gave us enough time to tackle her."

"Is all of this really necessary?" Vision asks, and Ross and Maria both turn to him with incredulous looks. "Look around. She has her own floor, fifty guards, and you keep her tied up and gagged? And in a shock collar?"

"Perhaps you are not understanding her true power, Vision," Ross says patronisingly, a sickly-sweet smile on his face. "She could destroy the world. We have to keep her bound as tightly as we can, or she could easily escape."

"It just doesn't seem right," Vision says softly, looking back down at her, her sad eyes and how still and pale she is. "She's a human being. She doesn't deserve to be treated like this."

"We treat her well!" Ross protests. "Three meals a day, regular showers, and the shackles can come off when she starts behaving and not using her powers every time we give her the benefit of the doubt. And she's protected here. From all the groups like HYDRA who would love to get their hands on her. At least here she's under SHIELD's protection."

"Secretary Ross has suggested that you will be her mentor when we release them and begin shaping our covert team," Maria says, and Vision turns to her, moving his gaze away from the girl gazing at him with wounded eyes an effort. "Each of them will be temporarily assigned to an Avenger until they can be trusted to operate alone."

"For instance, Captain Rogers will be taking charge of the Black Widow," Ross says. "We believe he is the only member of your team who will not be influenced by her looks - no insult meant to any other Avenger, of course. Mr. Stark will be assigned to the Hulk, Mr. Wilson to the Winter Soldier, Colonel Rhodes to Hellfire, Mr. Barton to the Ant Man, and you to the Scarlet Witch, Vision. If you are comfortable with taking her on."

"Of course," Vision says, and momentarily wonders if his reply was too quick. "I'm honored you trust me with the most dangerous member of this new team, Secretary," he adds, trying to hide his slip of the tongue. "But what if she - or any of them - become volatile or uncontrollable?"

"A nanite explosive will be injected into each of their necks before they are released," Maria answers, and Vision almost winces at the thought. "Should any of them attack or attempt to escape, they can be killed with a click of a button."

"One more thing, Vision," Ross says, and his face sets into a serious mask, hard as steel. "Don't let this become personal. She is not a good person. After we are sure than they will be safe as a team, they will all be returned to their cells until such a time as we need them. Don't let her get to you."

"Of course not, Secretary," Vision says, speaking with a brazen confidence he doesn't truly feel, if he were to be entirely honest with himself. "I promise, I am not so easily distracted."

* * *

Wanda Maximoff is intriguing from the first moment she steps out of the armoured helicopter onto the carefully maintained lawn of the Avengers compound, the faded prison uniform traded for a dark dress and a scuffed red leather jacket that she's constantly tugging down over her hands. Her fingers are weighed down with rings, a necklace at her throat, and her eyes are guarded. She barely holds eye contact with Vision, as if the minutes they gazed at each other in the Raft - the moments that drift to the forefront of Vision's mind when the rest of the world is at rest, picked out bright and blinding among his memories - never happened at all.

She moves into the room next to his, but the walls remain bare and the decorations neutral, no sign of the woman who sleeps in the bed every night. He only communicates with her to tell her when to meet him for training sessions, watches her weave glowing scarlet magic between her fingers and create tiny darts of energy that chase the enemy holograms mercilessly, and counts the minutes it takes her to break each one apart into miniscule lights that flicker and die. For a woman named as the most powerful of the six held in the Raft, she doesn't show the potential that the other five have, her silence holding day after day.

"Perhaps you could try something different today, Ms. Maximoff," he says as he takes up his position looking over the simulation, and she looks up at him, heavy black eyeliner standing out in her pale face. "Something a little stronger. The darts are effective, but wouldn't be against a faster or stronger enemy."

Despite his suggestion, her tactics are the same as ever, and his voice is a little terser, a little more authoritative, when he calls down, "Ms. Maximoff, you are not proving to SHIELD that they were right to release you. If you cannot be an effective member of the team, they will put you back in the Raft."

Red envelopes the training room, shaking the floor, and Vision's jaw drops to see her, bleeding bright glowing magic, her eyes blazing crimson and her mouth open in a silent scream. Only when the light fades away does he see that her shoulders are shaking, the gleam of tears in her eyes, and he phases down through his platform to her side, kneeling with her as she collapses to the floor, legs awkwardly folded beneath her and tears tinged black with make-up. "You don't understand," she says, the first time she's spoken to him since arriving at the compound.

"I would like to," he says softly, putting a tentative hand on her shuddering shoulder. Her wet eyes look down to where their skin touches, the silence hanging on the air thick with tension, before she blinks and looks away. He wonders if the slight smile that curves a corner of her mouth was simply wishful thinking on his part, and shifts when she does, curling into a more comfortable position and swiping at the tearstains with the backs of her hands, smudging grey across her skin.

"I never asked," she says, voice thick with the outburst of emotion, and looks up at him, her eyes clear and curious. "Is that the mind stone?" He nods, and awe overtakes her expression, her hand rising slowly towards him and then abruptly withdrawing.

"It's alright," he says, taking her wrist gently and lifting her hand to the stone, her palm curving over it. He closes his eyes, feels the tendril of a new presence in his head, simply curious, exploring the infinite knowledge of the stone.

"It's beautiful," she breathes, and his eyes fly open in surprise, to see her face in a mask of serenity, as if she wasn't crying just a minute ago. After a moment, she pulls her hand away from him, slight colour creeping into her cheeks, but her eyes don't leave his. "I've never seen a mind so peaceful," she says, a slight smile lifting her mouth and brightening her eyes. It causes his stomach to swoop, a warning to hiss in the back of his mind, and it's against his better judgement that he returns her smile.

"I didn't mean to push you," he says, and her expression of wonder fades back into a cool mask of indifference, though her darting eyes remove some of the sting from the change in her. "I won't ask you to do more than you're ready for."

"You don't know what it was like in the Raft," she says, darkness woven through her words, shadows in her eyes. "You got the SHIELD PR package about how we were treated well and kept out of the hands of the enemies we've made and the people who would give anything to control us. They had me in a shock collar. If I showed the slightest signs of using powers, they would activate it." She meets his eyes again, anger in the tense of her jaw and the twitch of her mouth. "You saw us, when they brought you there. I'd only been there nine months, the rest much longer, all of us ripped away from our lives. Did you think we deserved that?"

The moral ambiguity she presents to him weaves through his mind, tangled up in confusion and emotional bias, so he simply replies with what he knows he should say, what every SHIELD operative thinks so they're able to sleep at night. "You were committing crimes."

"Such as?" she asks, fire returned to her eyes in subtle sparks of red. "Murder? Stealing? Taking the law into our own hands? I have killed thirty-three people in my life, Vision - how many have you killed?"

"That...that's irrelevant to this conversation."

"How?" She gets to her feet, flicks a speck of lint away from her skirt, and looks down at him with contempt clear in her eyes. "You might think that you've made up for what you've done by signing the Sokovia Accords and letting the government tell you what to do. But you have killed many more people than I have."

"It was in the name of saving hundreds of others," he says, the words from every report they've ever had to file, the words they've said to reporters clamouring to know why the death toll for a mission was too high to their minds, the words they've had to say to families grieving their loved ones.

"You think that means you're better than me?" she snaps. "Killing is killing. I can tell anyone I want that I killed in the name of saving other people. It doesn't mean that what I did was right. At least _I_ can accept that."

"Ms. Maximoff..." The words won't come, trapped by the look in her eyes, all piercing fire and crystal clear contempt for him, and it takes a short search of the depths of his mind to find something to say to her. "I do not believe that I am better than you. We have both killed for our own reasons. I have often wished that it did not have to be that way. There is value in humanity."

"You talk about it as if you're not part of it," she says, and he gives her a shadow of a smile, sadness seeping through his soul.

"Perhaps I am not." She blinks at him, and he can't keep the melancholy out of his voice as he elaborates. "You must know, Ms. Maximoff, that I am not human. Everything I am is born of the mind stone. I am made of otherworldly power and vibranium and technology refined to create a synthetic compound that might pass for skin. I don't have a soul."

"You do," she says softly, and laces her fingers through his, and whatever heart he has skips a beat at her lack of fear, her eyes meeting his, the first time anyone has ever held his hand, looked at him with something that both terrifies and intrigues him in their eyes, drawing him in. "I can see it. You are so much more human than you believe, Vision."

"I wish I could believe you, Ms. Maximoff," he says sadly, and she holds his hand a little tighter, moves closer, the world seeming to narrow to only them, and when he tries to glance away from her and break the crackling tension her hand cups to his cheek, turns him to look at her, and he tries to hide that his breath hitches when her touch lingers just a little too long, almost becoming a caress.

"Believe me," she whispers. "If you weren't human, I wouldn't be able to see your mind. Trust that." Her hand finally falls away from his face, and he immediately misses the warmth of her touch. "You belong. Never let them make you feel like you don't."

"I'm afraid I cannot help feeling that way, Ms. Maximoff," he says, and she shifts closer, and her eyes are very bright and very green, seeming to take over his whole world, imprint themselves on his memory, take hold of him and point him towards her as a compass needle towards true north.

"Wanda," she says, so softly, and gives him a smile of such sweetness that it stops his breath. "You don't have to be formal with me."

"If that's what you want," he says, and she nods, eyes bright as he experimentally adds, "Wanda," paying attention to the way the vowels and consonants of her name shape his mouth, how the two separate syllables feel against his tongue, the way her name sounds as he says it. It feels _right_ , perfectly placed, and her smile lights up his whole world.

Even though it's against everything he stands for, even though Ross' voice warning him not to let their working relationship with her become personal is resounding at the back of his mind, he returns her smile. And when they have to leave the training room, Rhodes giving Vision a look of utter exhaustion as he follows Hellfire into the simulation, Wanda doesn't return to her room to be alone. She stays with him, her gaze on him seeming to scald his skin, and when their hands collide as he teaches her to play chess it sends sparks as strong as lightning rushing through him.

Wanda has already worked her way through his armour, against his will, found her way into his mind and taken hold of him. He can't help being drawn to her. He can't help letting it become personal.

* * *

Night is curling its black fingers against the window as Vision sits in the ornate armchair in his room, a heavy book of ancient mythologies balanced on his thighs as he turns pages yellowed with age, stirring up dust motes that dance silvery on the air. Illustrations accompany the written tales from ages and civilisations long melted into the ground, and he traces each one in fascination, following the curves and angles.

He's dragged out of his reading by the creak of the bedsprings, Wanda rolling onto her stomach to look at him. Her eyes are bright and magical and he has to fight hard to keep his gaze from slipping downwards to the shadow of her cleavage in her simple black dress. "I'm bored," she says, so petulant and yet somehow endearing.

"It's a stakeout, Ms. Maximoff," he says, setting his book aside and taking another glance out at the inky black night and the dark porch of the man they're monitoring. "We are not supposed to be entertained. We're only here to monitor whether the sightings of Rumlow are real or not."

"Why did they send us?" she asks. "Why not one of the less powerful ones? Why-"

"I don't question Secretary Ross' decisions," he says, and she rolls her eyes, sprawling over onto her back on the bed. Spread out in the pale hotel sheets, her dark hair waving across the white, she looks like something he wants to bury himself in and never come back out. He wants to drown himself in her eyes. He wants so much more than he ever thought he could, all his desire tangled up in her and the scarlet magic that bleeds from her.

"Maybe you should," she says, and he sighs. Sitting at the end of the bed, he feels the mattress dip when she moves closer to him, dizzy with the scent of her perfume and way the light reflects on her rings when she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She makes no move to adjust her neckline as it pulls further down her chest, and he snatches his eyes away from the glimpse of lace above her dress. "If you questioned things more, everything would be different."

"How so?"

"Well," she moves closer, the warmth of her skin brushing his, and he's paralysed, desire a flicker of flame shooting up from the depths of his stomach, her eyes his whole world, "you might question why I find reasons to be close to you."

"I...I presumed it's because I'm your mentor and it would only take me saying one thing to Secretary Ross to have you removed from the programme-"

"Let's pretend he doesn't exist right now," she says, and when he opens his mouth again she puts a finger to his lips. Her skin is smooth and soft and a smirk curls across her lips when he feels heat rush to his face. "Vizh...are you gonna kiss me or not?"

When he's tentatively dreamt of her, he imagined kissing her softly. He thought it would be a shy, a slow, tender acknowledgement of the pull between them. He thought that Ross' warning would echo at the back of his mind and he would have to shut it out.

But the moment Wanda's lips touch his, the rest of the world falls away. He loses himself in her mouth, her hands, his fingers tracing the curve of her waist and pulling her into his lap. He thought there would be a moment where the kiss ended, where they smiled into each other's eyes and had the tender moment he's seen in so many movies. He thought that was supposed to be a part of the carefully choreographed dance of a first kiss.

Their kiss lasts until they have to part to breathe, and then Wanda's hands are at the buttons of his shirt, tugging until he's bare-chested beneath her, her hand pressing him down onto the bed. Everything is fast and wild and desperate, her dress on the floor and his hands on her, her kisses demanding more and more of him. Their twin gasps when she sinks onto him.

Afterwards, he lies with her draped across his chest, trying to catch his breath. He just had sex with the villain he is supposed to be mentoring. Ross told him not to let it become personal, but there's nothing quite so personal as _having sex with her_. He's waiting for the shame to wash over him, but nothing comes. All he wants to do is watch Wanda like this, vulnerable and soft and smiling, her hair spread out on the pillows and her lips soft in a brief kiss on his chin.

"I've wanted that since I first saw you," she says softly, and he can feel embarrassed heat rushing to his face. She sits up, his eyes lingering on her, awed that he held her in his arms, that he heard her cry out his name, and she gives him a look that sends all his blood rushing downwards. "Round two?"

He's about to reach for her and kiss the smugness out of her smile when the phone rings. The phone that only the compound has access to, and he's already reaching for his slacks, getting himself dressed again, pretending that a naked Scarlet Witch in his arms never happened. "Vision."

"It's Hellfire." Captain Rogers' voice is slow and steady, the way it always is when something terrible happens. "He tried to escape, and...the chip in his neck, it...he's dead. Ross is furious. Be back here by morning"

"Yes, Captain." He hangs up and turns to Wanda, still invitingly sprawled out in the hotel bed. "We have to go. Hellfire tried to run."

"Idiot," she says, rolling her eyes as she reaches for her tossed-aside clothes. "He liked his powers too much. No one should lean so heavily on what they can do that other people can't."

"Some would say that you do that," he says, and she turns angry eyes on him, her smile slipping away. "I only meant-"

"My powers use me, not the other way round," she snaps. "They...I'm scared." All the anger seems to go as quick as it came, and he looks down and chews on her lower lip, looking so vulnerable in the hotel lamplight. He wants so desperately to protect her, to step forward and take her in his arms and make her forget the way they could forget what they were doing was a bad idea. "I'm scared they're going to take control completely one day. I'm...I'm scared they'll make me do things I don't want to do."

" _Wanda_." He takes her hands in his, and she looks up into his eyes, and he sees wetness there, a tear caught in her eyelashes. He wants to lean in close and kiss it away, to hold her until the magic lets go, because it couldn't possibly be more powerful than whatever wild thing has drawn them together. "I won't let that happen."

"There's nothing you can do to stop it," she says, voice soft and strained. "It's taken over before. I blink, and then it's hours later and people are dead and I...I _can't_ -"

"If it tries to take you, I won't let go," he says, a forceful promise. And the way she looks at him and slowly leans in to kiss him, even with the morning deadline looming over them, makes it clear that she believes him.

She escapes less than a week later. When he's helping with the clean-up, watching the seven guards she killed on the way out be wheeled away under white sheets by a stony-face SHIELD agent, he looks for a moment alone. A moment to bury his head in his hands and regret that he failed her.

Ross finds him, though. The Secretary finds him in the office, obsessively watching the surveillance footage of Wanda with her eyes turned blazing red, the same colour swimming in strands around her hands, her stepping endlessly forward and the bullets not even touching her. "You did your best," he says, and Vision doesn't deign to give a response. "She is...powerful. Perhaps even more powerful than SHIELD realised. Whatever that thing in her is, it neutralised the nanite. We can't take her out remotely."

"I'm sure Captain Rogers would lead the mission-"

"It will be you," Ross says, and Vision goes cold. "It _must_ be you. Your powers against hers will be a sight to behold. And I am confident that you will defeat her."

"But I...I don't want to hurt Wanda."

"Wanda is gone, Vision." Every word is like a blow to his chest, thinking of Wanda gilded in the lamplight, vulnerable when she told him she was scared. The terrible hot, cloying guilt that he let this happen when he promised her he wouldn't let go. "Only the Scarlet Witch remains."

* * *

His cape whispers against the ground behind him when he approaches the derelict train station that the Scarlet Witch has made her base in. The other five from the Raft creep behind him, and he looks back at them occasionally. Black Widow's electric charges lit up in brilliant blue rings at her waist and wrist, Ant Man occasionally shrinking down to run ahead for a little, the Hulk's footsteps making the ground shake, the Winter Soldier's eyes glinting behind his black mask. They are risking their lives to fight the Scarlet Witch, just like he is.

"I know your plan, you know," the whisper comes from Black Widow, and he whirls to look at her, her red hair floating around her face and the gun in her hand. "I know you're going to try to get the magic out."

"Ross gave the kill order," he says, even though the words hurt to say, slicing his throat. "I will follow his orders."

"Bullshit," Black Widow says sweetly. "You're in love with the little witch. God knows why, but you are. And you're not going to just march in there and put a bullet in her head like you probably should. You're going to try to talk her down, aren't you?"

"It's none of your business what your mission leader is doing-"

"We'll help," she finally says. "We'll distract her little mind-controlled minions and give you time to do whatever you want. The big dramatic speech. We'll help."

"Why?" The question falls out of him before he can help himself, and she looks at him, her hand around her gun and the blue charges reflected in her eyes.

"We're not the bad guys here," she says. "The people who try to control what we do with our powers are. If someone is doing something terrible, sure, stop them. Like New York. But to lock us all away because of a few mistakes..." She gives him a flickering up and down look and says, "You're a very unusual person. They don't understand you. I don't think Ross would hesitate to lock you up in the Raft if he thought you'd done one thing wrong."

"I have no intention of getting myself locked in the Raft, Ms. Romanoff," he says. "Not until I help the woman I love." Saying it feels right in his mouth, puts something frantic at peace. As absurd as it might seem, he is in love. Wanda has his heart, and he is not going to let the chaos magic simply take over. He would let the Witch kill him before he hurt Wanda.

When they walk into the sweeping ceilings and crumbling walls, there's an eerie silence. The Witch's mind-controlled minions stumble around the room, and the Witch herself turns to them. Another person layered over Wanda's face, her eyes red and her magic shining out of her. A smile slashes across her face, and red floods out across them. He barely catches a glimpse of the team around him raising their weapons before the wave overwhelms him and his mind is somewhere else.

In a hotel room. Another one, but much brighter. A place where it isn't illicit, doesn't have to be a secret. Wanda is draped across him, her eyes soft and her hair brushing his skin, her head spread wide over the beat of his heart. Somehow he knows that they don't have to hide, that everything doesn't have to be hidden. He can love her openly and proudly. When she leans down to kiss him, her eyes glow briefly red, and he isn't afraid. He wants to drown in her.

"Vision!" The shout breaks him out of the fantasy, Wanda's smiling face disappearing in shreds of glowing red. The Scarlet Witch is statue still, red blazing from every inch of her, and his team are shaking themselves out of similar visions to fight. Black Widow is staring at him, and she gives an incline of her head towards the Witch.

"Go," she says, and though her voice is quiet it carries across the fighting, the mind-controlled minions and Vision's team of villains. Ex-villains. Heroes? He doesn't know anymore. "Save her."

A cloud of glowing red erupts from the Witch's hands, enveloping her, and Vision pushes past the fighting. At the edge of it all, he takes a deep breath and pushes himself into the red. He can feel the magic grabbing at him, trying to pull him apart, but he forces himself not to be scared. He has to get to Wanda, and that drives him on.

The Witch is shockingly calm at the centre of it all. Her dress moves around her and her hair is flying in the rush of power, red crackling through the dark strands. If Wanda was in control, and not the chaos magic that Strucker let in, he would think that she's never looked more beautiful. "You have to stop," he says softly. "Just let go, Wanda. You can come home."

"You're a fool." The Witch says it with Wanda's lips, her voice the same and yet different, darker, inked with black magic. "This cannot be stopped. I will pull the world apart and rewrite it. Chaos will reign and the world will fall to ruin."

"I know you're in there, Wanda," he says, and there's an absurd breathlessness to his words, emotion rising in his throat. "I know you can fight this."

"She is _weak_ ," the Witch spits. "She tries to fight me. She thinks she can hold me back. She will always yield to me. You cannot hold her."

"Wanda, _please_ ," he whispers, desperate and aching and beautiful. "Please fight it. Don't let it take you from me."

"You'll never see her again," the Witch hisses, her eyes bright with victory. "I see her foolish thoughts. Her silly little dreams for a future with you. I'll make sure you won't get it."

"Listen to me, Wanda," he says, and reaches for her. He twines his fingers with hers, the burn of the magic held in the palms of her hands digging into his skin, burrowing into him. But he won't let chaos shred him apart. He knows chaos, has known it since Wanda came into his life and stirred up feelings he didn't know he was capable of having. "Don't let this take you from me. Please."

He leans through the ring of power surrounding her, their faces so close together. He's coming apart bit by bit, the magic tearing through him, but he finds the strength to whisper, "I love you," and press his lips to hers.

There's the sound of rushing wind, and an awful otherworldly screaming. The light is too bright for him to keep his eyes open against it, and an explosion sends him flying backwards into darkness.

When he raises his head again, his entire body aching, he looks around. Nothing has been destroyed, nothing fallen. His team are hovering over the unconscious forms of the Scarlet Witch's mind controlled minions, calling in medical back-up, and a sense of pride warms his chest. They aren't running like Ross thought they would. They're helping.

Then he sees the huddled mass at the centre of it all, and scrambles to Wanda's side. She's ashen pale, her eyes closed, and for a terrible moment he fears the worst. Then her eyes fly open and she gasps in air, and he reaches for her, helping her upright, his hand curved to her cheek, brushing her hair, unable to stop touching her. "Are you alright?" he asks softly, and she looks around at the room, the people stumbling to their feet with their eyes still webbed faintly red.

"Did I hurt anyone?" she asks, and tears swim in her perfect eyes, and he shakes his head. "Are you lying?"

"You know you didn't," he says softly. "You feel it."

"I don't always remember what happens when the magic takes over," she says, and then she looks up at him and gives him a small smile. "But did you tell me you love me?"

He smiles, and raises her hand to his lips, brushing a kiss to her palm as he breathes, "Yes."

"How terribly dramatic," she says, and then raises her head to kiss him.


End file.
